Transcendent Read Online Free Page A

and skin so luminous he could chart the stages of her arousal by the blood rising in her throat and cheeks. He stroked her cheek with his fingertips and watched the heat he knew burned inside deepen the pale pink to rose. With his index finger he traced the swell of her lower lip, then dipped inside to touch the tip of her tongue.
    The temperature of the air between them shot up ten degrees. Her pulse, visible above the V of her sweater leaped at the base of her throat as her tongue darted out to taste him.
    Such mixed messages. She was an enigma, a quest wrapped up in a five-foot-tall, slender woman.
    He trailed one finger down to her skittering pulse. “That’s a tempting offer, but I’ve got ten inches and a hundred pounds on you. I don’t need to restrain you.”
    Not a hint of reaction in her face, but a leap of blood under his fingertip. Her gaze sharpened as she took in his body as if seeing it for the first time, noting shoulders and hips, lingering at his hands, which were big enough to hold both of her wrists. If he were so inclined.
    â€œWhat do you need?” she asked.
    Asking the question subtly changed the dynamics. She’d never asked before, so here they went, over the cliff, into thin air. “To touch you. However I want to. For as long as I want to.”
    A charged stillness followed, quiet enough to hear the ebb and flow of traffic on Fifth Avenue, ten stories below, and the rush of blood in his ears. Such a simple word,
touch,
encompassing so much. Their previous meetings, arranged by Lady Matilda’s Introductions service at Marin’s request, involved exploring the pleasure found in searing, unavoidable pain.
    Wary for a number of reasons, he used only his first name but Marin came to their encounters shrouded in a character, Miss Banks. The experience was so all-consuming it took him three meetings to realize Banks was a pseudonym and another six to discover the fine seam in her defenses, curiosity.
    Is this the only thing that turns you on?
    Hardly.
    She’d paused after that single word. Sometimes silences were as informative as words or tone. This one wasn’t hesitant. Marin owned her sexuality without reservation; the possibility of more and varied sex with him didn’t crack her.
    What do you have in mind?
    Find out.
    For nine heated nights
touch
was limited to restraints of leather on wrists and ankles, to sweat-soaked cotton sheets and his belt on bare skin, to his cock in her cunt, to thrusting and grasping, the smack of flesh against flesh, to agonized gasps and groans. Suffering, erotic and real. Then simple curiosity undid Miss Banks and, for a split second, ignited Marin.
    He wanted more than a split second. Getting it was the problem.
    At his statement, she reacted much as he anticipated, breathing halted, muscles tensed and poised for flight. It took visible effort for her to inhale and say, “You need to touch me.”
    Need
didn’t cover it. “Yes.”
    â€œYou touch me every time we’re together.”
    â€œAccording to your rules,” he countered. Rules she’d established to protect herself. He wouldn’t dismantle her physical or emotional walls.
    By all means, keep out the rest of the world, or at least the rest of the male population of the world. But not me.
    Intensity sat familiarly on his face, but its tight grip on his heart felt unusual. Urgent. “Be daring, Marin. Find out what I have in mind.”
    Clearly this wasn’t what she’d expected . . . but he put enough of a taunt into his tone that she wasn’t calling a halt to it.
    His next move was a feint. He lowered his mouth to hers. As expected, she turned her head ever so slightly, her gaze flickering between his mouth and his eyes to gauge his response.
    He adapted, brushing his lips against the heated flesh of her cheek and using the rough scrape of his stubble in counterpoint to the occasional flick of his tongue. When